Points Of Concern re: Council Bill 42-2015 a bill to create a Military Installation Overlay Zone (mioz) around Joint Base Andrews Our Objective: Council Bill 42-2015 the mioz bill – Concluding this is not a good bill. Why

Additional Points of Concern

The Military Impact Overlay Zone (MIOZ) bill prohibits or restricts eight categories of land uses in the safety zones. Few, if any of these restrictions is absolutely necessary to protect Prince George's County residents, given the safety record at Joint Base Andrews, which has operated at least 50 years without an accident.

No need to restrict or prohibit certain uses.

There certainly is no need to prohibit or restrict any of the following land uses:

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  Clubs or lodges.
  
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  Restaurants
  
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  Churches and other places of worship
  
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  Offices
  
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  Entertainment and recreational attractions
  

New churches are limited to 6000 square feet or 80 sanctuary seats, whichever is greater.

New restaurants can be no larger than 3500 square feet, unless they are in shopping centers, in which case they can be 6000 square feet.

Only very small new office buildings are permitted.

The unreasonable and arbitrary nature of the restrictions is plain. The chosen rules is plain. It makes no sense, for instance, to have one rule for restaurants in shopping centers and another rule for restaurants located anywhere else. Similarly, it is illogical to prohibit all recreation and entertainment activities without regard to how many people they are likely to attract. Art galleries and museums are very different from stadiums and may draw far fewer people, but all are treated exactly the same.

Also, why restrict office uses to very small structures while leaving shopping centers wholly unrestricted.

The stated purpose of the MIOZ is to prevent large concentrations of people. However, the numerous inconsistencies in the bill call into question whether that is the real purpose.

Also, even when the bill appears to confer a benefit, a closer look shows that the so-called benefit may be an empty promise. The 2015 version of the bill allows churches, restaurants and offices to expand by 25 percent. However, the right to expand does not apply if the church, restaurant or office is located in an I-4 (Industrial) or U-L-I (Urban Light Industrial) zone. A fair amount of the land in the safety zones is zoned I-4. Moreover, the MIOZ bill states elsewhere that one of its purposes is to encourage more land in the safety zones land to be rezoned to I-4. See the MIOZ bill at page 17. Thus, the ability to expand may not exist for a number of entities that thought the amended bill gave them a better deal than the 2014 version.

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The relevant section of CB42-2015 is 27.548 at page23-26